How arthurch started their stationery journey

Company name

Moat Farm Mofos

Overview

The name of the "brand": where I was brought up and where I picked the fruit is called Moat Farm. My mother still lives there and its where I go for the holidays. That explains the first part. The second part: "Mofos" - it just amuses me; I like the alliterative way it sounds, I like the juxtaposition of rural England with US ghetto argot and I like the fact the my mother and her sexagenarian friends will be completely oblivious to what it actually means. It just makes me laugh and I think that my friends will like it too.

Tell us a bit about who you are and the people you reach

I have made some exotic liqors by mixing wild fruits with spirits and sugar. These damsons and vodka have been maturing over the last year and are now ready for bottling. I am looking for a skilled graphic designer who will design a label for me. This label will not be for commercial use - the 30-odd bottles that I produce will be kept as presents for friends or for bringing out a parties. Dimensions: once we have a cool label I am going to cut it out and glue it onto wine bottles that I will then fill with my grog and then bottle. So, the finished product needs to be about the size and dimensions of the label on a bottle of wine or spirits.

Requirements

When I hear "Mofo" I think of an angry Samuel. L. Jackson with a massive 'fro and spitting out the word as he scowls into the camera. I expect that I got this impression from the recent remake of "Shaft". I have long been a fan of stencil iconography and street art - and particularly like the clean lines and instant recognizability of Shepard Fairey's stencil of Barack Obama entitled "Hope." I like comic book art as well, so if there were a headshot of Shaft (one way or another I am fairly set on having a version of Shaft) scowling and showing his teeth that'd be cool. The font: I would like to be able to reproduce the finished image on a primitive Xerox machine which means that the finished article needs to be monochrome. For the lettering I had in mind something resembling an old style of stencil lettering - like the original A-Team logo. The three lines at the bottom: These will include: what it is (damson, cherry, raspberry), when it was mixed and when it was bottled. So, they need to have enough space for normal-sized handwriting because this bit will be added last on an individual basis. The stars at the end of the lines I just added for effect. Whether to include them or not is a matter for your own judgement; I just thought that they may look cool.